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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26151676">Chicken Scratch</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thelxiope/pseuds/Thelxiope'>Thelxiope</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Lost in Space (TV 2018)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-05-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 12:07:10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,573</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26151676</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thelxiope/pseuds/Thelxiope</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Debbie The Chicken, of The 24th Colonist Group; Having Been Lost in Space by Shipwreck. With an Account of How She Was at Last Strangely Delivered. Written by Herself.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. I Am Stranded</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>I stand upon a precipice, the shattered remains of my ship beneath my feet. Harsh mountains and dark ravines twist and threaten far below as a shower of sparks rains down.</p><p>My pilot is dead. The original crew assigned to assist me never even made it on board before our emergency launch. My sojourn to the new world has been cut short by the cruel hand of fate. And now I am alone and lost, somewhere, in space.</p><p>There is no time to succumb to despair. Alarms are sounding, squawking in futility. I am inspecting what is left of the bridge when something stirs behind me. The man, he lives! But he is trapped in his seat, belted and bent behind the console; it is what saved him from plummeting to his doom. He pulls off his helmet and struggles to use his knife to cut himself free. Imperiled! The ship lurches. The knife slips from his grasp. I watch as it tumbles down the rocky slope and into the abyss.</p><p>“Any chance you could get that for me?” he asks, panting.</p><p><em>Are you serious?</em> I scoff.</p><p>“Right,” he shakes his head and mumbles. He groans and strains and calls out for his companions. One of them responds, but then the ship shudders violently and I am displaced!</p><p>I leap as far as my legs allow and flap with all my might. I call upon the strength of my noble ancestors to flutter and stretch to reach solid ground. An updraft gusts from the void. I catch it and make it mine. Success! I am back on solid ground.</p><p>But what ground it is: black sand as sharp as diamonds, devoid of plant life and moisture. I walk gingerly around my ship. The land here is covered in unyielding rocks and wreckage. I am in the shadow of a <em>terrain escarpé</em>. Smoke and dust from the impact swirl across the site, yet the air is breathable, cold, and the sky is blue above. Propitious circumstances. I am searching for the provisions that I will need to survive this disaster. I will need food, water, shelter. If by chance there is a way to contact other survivors that may have crash landed on this world, I will need to discover that too.</p><p>From across the field of debris, I spy a new tragedy. One of the passengers has been thrown clear from the ship. She is broken and unmoving. From within the vessel, sounds of tribulation and effort echo against the ruptured hull as the man and his remaining companion fight to escape. I regret that I cannot help them now, and yet…</p><p>Before long they appear on the site, dirty and determined. I am impressed by their tenacity. They immediately begin to help me find supplies. When the man finds the emergency flare kit, I do not conceal my excitement. The woman is preoccupied with the personal effects she has found, a photo album and religious medallion, and is not heeding my instructions.</p><p>The man finds the body of his fallen comrade. Although I am nearby, he summons the woman. He calls her “doctor,” but she is not the one who was assigned to my ship. Regardless of what kind of doctor she is, the patient is beyond help. My present concern is getting the man to shoot off one of the flares from the kit he found. Thankfully, he does.</p><p>No help comes. He stands atop the rubble scanning the horizon. He sees, several miles away, a sign of life. Another of our company has made it to the surface! They prepare to set out across the plains. I fix my gaze upon the man as he pulls his pack onto his shoulders, awaiting his attention.</p><p>He sighs and mumbles supplication to his deity. I forgive his reluctance; we are all under duress.</p><p>“All right, all right. Stop staring at me,” he says. “Let’s go. No chicken left behind.”</p><p>He lifts me and tucks me into the crook of his arm. I am emphatic in my thanks. We three, unlikely and wary colleagues, begin our journey.</p><p>… --- …</p><p>We have made it all the way down to the red, dusty foothills. They dip and swell, all sage brush and desolation. The temperature is warmer. The man has secured me in his backpack and from here I have a good vantage point and can monitor our progress.</p><p>My companions’ conversation comes in bursts. They are now discussing the doctor’s background; a psychologist she says. The man is skeptical and dismissive, but not cruel. I laugh at a joke he makes at her expense. <em>That was a good one.</em></p><p>“I know,” he says.</p><p>Our camaraderie is fleeting, for just over the next rise we arrive at our destination: the crash site of another would-be colonist. A crimson parachute billows around in the brush. We run to her aid, yet we may be too late. She is still strapped in her ejection seat. The man leans over her, Angela by name, thinking she is dead, but she gasps suddenly for air. We both jump back in surprise. We thought this could be someone who would help us, and now we are the ones to provide the help.</p><p>I am lowered to the ground in the pack so they can disengage Angela and lay her gently on the ground. She is bloodied and limp. She does not regain consciousness.</p><p>The man scans the horizon again. There is a plume of smoke in the distance. Perhaps it is Angela’s crashed ship, presenting another opportunity to make contact, to get help. Ominously behind us, a gathering storm appears. We need to collect this other survivor and get moving, but my companions think it will be too difficult to bring her. The man says he is going to leave her. He even believes himself for an instant, before he hands me off to the doctor so he can hoist Angela over his shoulder. We start walking again. It is the doctor’s turn to goad and tease. She calls him out for pretending to care only for his own self-interest. She goes so far as to use his deliverance of me as an example.</p><p>“I know you’re a good person,” she says. “Look how you saved this chicken.”</p><p>
  <em>Indeed!</em>
</p><p>His denial is not as amusing. “Ask the chicken if I’m a good guy come dinner time.”</p><p>I poop in his knapsack.</p><p>… --- …</p><p>We continue on, the four of us. The doctor carries me. The man carries Angela. We stop for a brief rest, and fire off the second flare. The storm is getting closer. It is not long before the skies darken and the wind picks up. We make haste for shelter. A rock wall looms before us. We can find a crevice there, a cave to safeguard us from the biting dust and suffocating sands, and this we do.</p><p>The wind is howling. The cold has returned. We collapse into our shelter, shivering, exhausted, and at once relieved. But the doctor… she has lost her religious pendant along the way and the man heads back out into the storm. While he is gone, only briefly, I can hear her shuffling the items in her pack. I am thankful for the shelter and not paying attention to her actions. While my companions have goggles to protect their eyes from the storm, I have had to tuck myself deeper into the bag for protection. I emerge just as the man returns.</p><p>He holds the doctor’s lost necklace out to her, but she declines to take it. Instead she says she will leave us here in the cave and go for help. I think this is a good plan. She leaves us with the one remaining flare and the assertion that we will know when to use it.</p><p>And so, with death swirling all around us, we wait. The man keeps watch. He wraps Angela in a thermal blanket to keep her warm. I keep track of our supplies from the safety of my pack and do my best to keep our spirits up. I do not know how much time has passed before the man sees a distant vehicle appear in the view of his scope.</p><p>“Angela! That’s our ride!” he shouts to our still unconscious companion over the bluster of the storm. He turns and kneels next to me to retrieve the emergency flare kit. He hesitates for a moment and looks me in the eye, inviting me in to share his optimism. “It’s the last flare we’ve got,” he says, although there is no need of the reminder. “Give it a peck for good luck!” He holds the case out to me. I am not one for superstition, but I comply easily with his request. We need all the help we can get.</p><p>He flips open the lid.</p><p>We are betrayed!</p><p>Dumbstruck, we stare into the empty case. The outline where the flare gun and charges should be, burns our vision. He considers the necklace that he has wrapped around his wrist. This too for divine protection and luck, I suppose. Yet now he knows that this was the mode of the doctor’s deception. For when he went to retrieve it for her, she stole the last flare and gun. With a cry of anguish, he hurls it into the dirt and likewise sends the useless case out into the maelstrom.</p><p>What kind of doctor would leave us abandoned like this? <em>Charlatan! Murderer!</em> I am beside myself. If only I had been paying attention. If only I had not taken her under my wing.</p><p>The man is resigned. He wraps a blanket over his shoulders and slides back farther in the cave. He reaches out, pulls the knapsack and me with it into his lap. He surrounds us in his blanket, in his embrace. He places his head against mine as I stare out at the storm rapidly burying the necklace in its fury. What will become of us?</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. I Am Rescued</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>A howling and homicidal darkness approaches. The man presses us back into the small crevice, but there is no where else to go. We see in the distance a shooting star rising from the surface of the planet to the heavens: a blinking beacon, a prayer, salvation. Alas, we know it is not for us.</p><p>He pulls the blanket up over our heads, that we may find some solace and stillness beneath. The man is brave. He does not barter and weep as we wait for our end. He wants only the comfort of friendship, memories of life well lived, and whiskey. This is a beverage made from corn, which I also enjoy. I think I would have liked to have had some as well.</p><p>Suddenly there is a commotion outside our sepulcher! We harken to the sounds of an engine approaching, of people shouting over the din of the storm. We cautiously emerge. The man holds his arm up against the wind and biting grit. Beams of light flail and catch on the terrain and rocks until they finally land upon us, and then two other colonists appear from behind. Rescue for us all!</p><p>I am passed to the smaller of the two while the man and the second colonist collect Angela. Thus we are all bundled into the protection of the vehicle and make haste for safety. The storm rages just behind, buffeting and grasping for us, but the chariot is sufficient to elude its awful clutches.</p><p>There is a hush that follows, a wave of relief. Our saviors are Hiroki Watanabe and her father. Their Jupiter survived the evacuation and the emergency landing on this strange world. Hiroki’s daughter awaits at their base camp not far from here. I learn my companion’s name with the others. He is Don West. He introduces me to them as… Debbie. It is not my official title, nor my given name, but I permit him this familiarity after what we have endured together.</p><p>To the Watanabes, we are lavish in our thanks and breathless in our curiosity. <em>How ever did they find us?</em> They saw the flare that was fired by the treacherous doctor. They drove the ATV in this direction and used the equipment on board to scan the area. That is how they picked up my signal. I have been broadcasting our position this entire time from the locator chip attached to my ankle. I had not communicated this possibility as I did not want to engender any false hopes in my companion. There is ample proof that I am integral to the survival of these colonists, but I am not one to crow about it.</p><p>…---…</p><p>We are now somewhat settled into our daily lives as refugees. We are scratching out an existence. We turn our attention to sustenance, experimentation, communication. This is not our original destination, and it may not be our final destination, but we do as we must until we can re-establish contact with the <em>Resolute</em>. This planet is a strange one. Thankfully it is not all storms and rocks. There are snow-capped mountains, and forests, and fields. Scattered across the region there are even more survivors. We have banded together. This morning some have just arrived for a visit.</p><p>The three Watanabes are already outside with the family they call the Robinsons. Like us they are scientists and pilots and doctors. Exceptional! As I exit down the ramp from the Jupiter, I call out my greetings and salutations. Don West follows behind me.</p><p>“Get back here,” he calls.</p><p>I ignore him. I cannot imagine what could be so pressing at this very moment.</p><p>“Get back here!”</p><p>And then I am whisked up into the air. <em>Manhandled!</em></p><p>Don wheels me around so he can look me square in the face. “Haven’t you learned? Only terrible things happen when we go outside.”</p><p>Ah, I understand. He has become overprotective. While I appreciate his concern and devotion, I sense no immediate danger. I grant him leave to carry me over to the group of six who have now turned their attention to us. Don introduces himself and asks for the one who is the doctor. She has come to look in on Angela, who is awake but catatonic. (As part of my training I was once subjected to a similar type of traumatic hypnosis. Although mine lasted only 27 minutes; she has yet to say a word.)</p><p>I escort the doctor back into the ship with Don. He takes the opportunity to recount his heroism in finding and saving Angela. Impertinence! Sometimes he seems to forget who rescued whom. I suspect he is only trying to impress this young woman and win her favor, so I do not let it ruffle my feathers.</p><p>We pass through the bright and clean corridors of the ship, our home, to the medical bay. The doctor, Judy, introduces herself, but Angela does not respond. I lean in to inspect her more closely, not because I believe she is not up to the task, but because I am feeling apprehensive after our last encounter with a doctor. I will not be hoodwinked again. If Don has any of the same concerns, he does not express them. He leaves to give them their privacy. Reluctantly I exit with him. After all, we both have other duties that demand our attention.</p><p>We are the hope of the future.</p>
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